Without a doubt one of the most highly anticipated releases for 2010 will be the NVIDIA GF100 Fermi graphics card. For nearly a year NVIDIA has told the media and their fans that GF100 is coming and that it will be the best performing graphics card that the world has ever seen. Read on to see what we think after we spend some time with GF100!

In the PC Game Dark Void the average FPS was 77FPS on the GF100 prototype video card and 38FPS on the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 at a resolution of 1920x1200. From this benchmark we can see that a single GF100 prototype card is nearly twice as fast when compared to a single GeForce GTX 285 when it comes to the average frame rate!

i was trying to look for a far cry 2 benchmark for the 5870 , and couldnt find one that had the same settings are the one in this test. How many fps does a 5870 get in farcry 2 on 1900x1200 resolution and 4AA ?

about 65FPS average and 45FPS min on a Radeon HD 5870 from what I can tell here on my test machine in-house.

As for the price drop... With a die size rumored to be 500-600mm2 on GF100 I don't imagine it will be a cheap card as not many cores will fit on a 300mm 40nm wafer... If these cores don't get great yields over at TSMC the number of cores per wafer could be really bad... The core of a Radeon HD 5870 is 334mm2 if I recall correctly... That means you can get more cores per wafer with those and that means lower prices. I'm not expecting a big drop on the Radeon HD 5000 series.

Looks pretty good, but it's still being compared to the 5870... I assume this is nVidia's top-of-the line for Fermi, and they're constantly comparing it to the 5870, not the 5970. Any comparisons between those two? I do have to say, that hair-rendering video was pretty damn cool though...

shamrok3 wrote:Looks pretty good, but it's still being compared to the 5870... I assume this is nVidia's top-of-the line for Fermi, and they're constantly comparing it to the 5870, not the 5970. Any comparisons between those two? I do have to say, that hair-rendering video was pretty damn cool though...

GF100 = 5870

They are both companies top of the line solution. From the numbers we see here a GF100 will be slower than a 5970. NVIDIA will do a dual GF100 in the future and that will be the apples to apples comparison to the 5970.

So despite being newer they're still in ATi's shadow. Long live ATi, the King of the Hill! (I'm not biased at all!) Maybe if it's cheaper (MAJORLY doubt it) it will succeed, but ATi has always sneezed in nVidia's face over price/performance ratios.

I'm quite disappointed as well and i'm definitely not an Nvidia fan.I expected it to completely destroy any game thrown at it.

Also, the hair rendering video was impressive but a tiny detail many might overlook is that the computer running it had 3 GF100s in it running tripple SLI mode.I don't know the price yet but if its not within 30-50 euros from a 5870 only Nvidia die-hard fans will go the extra mile for it.And even then a 5970/GTX295 setup will still be faster and maybe even cheaper.

I'm only 100% sure about 1 thing after reading this.I want to win your 5870 contest even more now

im more of an ATi fan but with Fermi not officially released i cant say that these benchmarks are 100% accurate. if im not mistaken Nvidia never took the DDR5 leap in there last generation of cards but still competed and beat the DDR5 cards that ATi had. now that Nvidia is using DDR5 in Fermi i think its safe to say that Nvidia will be faster just by that comparison, but the only way to know that is to wait for the official release and benchmarks against the 5800 series.

Lt Ohio wrote:im more of an ATi fan but with Fermi not officially released i cant say that these benchmarks are 100% accurate. if im not mistaken Nvidia never took the DDR5 leap in there last generation of cards but still competed and beat the DDR5 cards that ATi had. now that Nvidia is using DDR5 in Fermi i think its safe to say that Nvidia will be faster just by that comparison, but the only way to know that is to wait for the official release and benchmarks against the 5800 series.

Comparing the memory chosen to the performance and drawing a conclusion from that is a terrible way to buy cards. NVIDIA chose GDDR3 and a 384-bit bus because GDDR3 was in plentiful supply and cheap compared to GDDR4/5 and it also helps offset their gigantic core costs. NVIDIA chose GDDR5 this time and I believe a 384-bit bus(not certain here) in order to provide additional bandwidth for another gigantic core. GDDR5 is now more plentiful and cheaper and frankly is the only choice for a high-end GPU. Now the problem here is the GF100 core is enormous compared to the RV870 core powering the HD5870. This alone makes the card more expensive, tack on 1.5GB of GDDR5 and NVIDIA will have a hard time beating the HD5870 in terms of price. Performance is only important if the price matches the performance, I bet the HD5870 will be a better buy than GF100 when you factor in price, performance, and power consumption. I can't wait for the dual Fermi cards, if you thought the HD5970 is hot just wait for that.

Comparing the memory chosen to the performance and drawing a conclusion from that is a terrible way to buy cards. NVIDIA chose GDDR3 and a 384-bit bus because GDDR3 was in plentiful supply and cheap compared to GDDR4/5 and it also helps offset their gigantic core costs. NVIDIA chose GDDR5 this time and I believe a 384-bit bus(not certain here) in order to provide additional bandwidth for another gigantic core. GDDR5 is now more plentiful and cheaper and frankly is the only choice for a high-end GPU. Now the problem here is the GF100 core is enormous compared to the RV870 core powering the HD5870. This alone makes the card more expensive, tack on 1.5GB of GDDR5 and NVIDIA will have a hard time beating the HD5870 in terms of price. Performance is only important if the price matches the performance, I bet the HD5870 will be a better buy than GF100 when you factor in price, performance, and power consumption. I can't wait for the dual Fermi cards, if you thought the HD5970 is hot just wait for that.

I never said that i was drawing a conclusion, just stating that with Nvidia going with GDDR5 = greater performance. ATi has always been the better choice when factored with price but that doesn't stop the fact that the Nvidia cards sold more because there drivers and performance were better. im sure there are people who will pay over 1,000 dollars for the Fermi, although im not one of em lol

Lt Ohio wrote:I never said that i was drawing a conclusion, just stating that with Nvidia going with GDDR5 = greater performance. ATi has always been the better choice when factored with price but that doesn't stop the fact that the Nvidia cards sold more because there drivers and performance were better. im sure there are people who will pay over 1,000 dollars for the Fermi, although im not one of em lol

The question I have is if Nvidia will be able to sell the GF100 Fermi here in the U.S. After losing the patent suit the release of the GF100 Fermi may be delayed due to appeals in court. I wish I knew what graphic cards will be impacted for sale in the U.S. Is there any way to find out?

And here is Rambus response: Rambus Inc. RMBS, one of the world’s premier technology licensing companies, today announced that the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) for its U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) action against NVIDIA Corp. and other respondents issued an Initial Determination finding them in violation of Section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930. The ALJ determined that three of Rambus’ five asserted patents are valid, enforceable, and infringed by the respondents. The ALJ also determined that there was no violation of Section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930 for the remaining two asserted patents. The action is Investigation Number 337-TA-661.

Any of the parties may request the ITC’s full Commission to review the ALJ’s Initial Determination. If the Commission grants a petition for review, it may affirm, modify, reverse, set aside, or remand all or part of the ALJ’s decision in developing the ITC’s final determination.

“Following an extensive hearing process, we are pleased with the ALJ’s determination that three of our patents are valid and infringed,” said Tom Lavelle, senior vice president and general counsel at Rambus. “We are obviously disappointed with the result for the other asserted patents and intend to request the Commission’s review of the corresponding portions of the Initial Determination. We will continue to vigorously protect our patented inventions for the benefit of our shareholders and in fairness to our paying licensees.”

History of the case: On November 6, 2008, Rambus filed a complaint with the ITC requesting an investigation pertaining to NVIDIA products. The complaint sought an exclusion order barring the importation, sale for importation, or sale after importation of products that infringe nine of Rambus’ patents. The accused products are products that incorporate certain NVIDIA memory controllers, including graphics processors and media and communications processors. The complaint named NVIDIA as a proposed Respondent, as well as companieswhose products incorporate the accused NVIDIA products and are imported into the United States. These respondents include: Asustek Computer Inc. and Asus Computer International, BFG Technologies, Biostar Microtech and Biostar Microtech International Corp., Diablotek Inc., EVGA Corp., G.B.T. Inc. and Giga-Byte Technology Co., Hewlett-Packard, MSI Computer Corp. and Micro-Star International Co., Palit Multimedia Inc. and Palit Microsystems Ltd., Pine Technology Holdings, Ltd., and Sparkle Computer Co. Four of the asserted patents were withdrawn from the investigation. An evidentiary hearing on the remaining asserted patents was held before the ALJ on October 13-20, 2009.

May question is: What if Rambus tries to block the sale of these graphic cards? I still don't know what cards are impacted. Is it all of them that were released from 2008? Is it possible that they will have to be taken off the shelves unless Nvidia pays Rambus a ton of money? Are you saying that the GF100 Fermi will be released on time? Or has this lawsuit caused a possible delay to the release date?